Hills of the Shatemuc Part 72

Mr. Haye stirred it, with a discontented look.

"Rose is late," he remarked again.

"_That's_ nothing new," said Elizabeth. "Late is her time."

Mr. Haye drunk his cold cupful.

"You're very fond of her, Lizzie, aren't you?"

"No," said Elizabeth. "I don't think I am."

"Not fond of her!" said Mr. Haye in a very surprised tone.

"No," said Elizabeth, -- "I don't think I am."

"I thought you were," said her father, in a voice that spoke both chagrin and displeasure.

"What made you think so?"

"You always seemed fond of her," said Mr. Haye.

"I can't have seemed so, for I never was so. There isn't enough of her to be fond of. I talk to her, and like her after a fashion, because she is the only person near me that I can talk to -- that's all."

"_I_ am fond of her," said Mr. Haye.

"It takes more to make me fond of anybody," said his daughter.

"I know _you_ are."

"What does Rose want, to have the honour of your good opinion?"

"O don't talk in that tone!" said Elizabeth. "I had rather you would not talk at all. You have chosen an unhappy subject. It takes a good deal to make me like anybody much, father."

"What does Rose want?"

"As near as possible, everything," said Elizabeth, -- "if you _will_ have the answer."

"What?"

"Why father, she has nothing in the world but a very pretty face."

"You grant her that," said Mr. Haye.

"Yes, I grant her that, though it is a great while since _I_ saw it pretty. Father, I care nothing at all for any face which has nothing beneath the outside. It's a barren prospect to me, however fair the outside may be -- I don't care to let my eye dwell on it."

"How do you like the prospect of your own, in the gla.s.s?"

"I should be very sorry if I didn't think it had infinitely more in it than the face we have been speaking of. It is not so beautifully tinted, nor so regularly cut; but _I_ like it better."

"I am afraid few people will agree with you," said her father dryly.

"There's one thing," said Elizabeth, -- "I sha'n't know it if they don't. But then I see my face at a disadvantage, looking stupidly at itself in the gla.s.s -- I hope it does better to other people."

"I didn't know you thought quite so much of yourself," said Mr. Haye.

"I haven't told you the half," said Elizabeth, looking at him.

"I am afraid I think more of myself than anybody else does, or ever will."

"If you do it so well for yourself, I'm afraid other people won't save you the trouble," said her father.

"I'm afraid _you_ will not, by the tone in which you speak, father."

"What has set you against Rose?"

"Nothing in the world! I am not set against her. Nothing in the world but her own emptiness and impossibility of being anything like a companion to me."

"Elizabeth! --"

"Father! -- What's the matter?"

"How dare you talk in that manner?"

"Why father," said Elizabeth, her tone somewhat quieting as his was roused, -- "I never saw the thing yet I didn't dare say, if I thought it. Why shouldn't I?"

"Because it is not true -- a word of it."

"I'm sure I wish it wasn't true," said Elizabeth. "What I said was true. It's a sorrowful truth to me, too, for I haven't a soul to talk to that can understand me -- not even you, father, it seems."

"I wish I didn't understand you," said Mr. Haye.

"It's nothing very dreadful to understand," said Elizabeth, -- "what I have been saying now. I wonder how you can think so much of it. I know you love Rose better than I do."

"I love her so well --" said Mr. Haye, and stopped.

"So well that what?"

"That I can hardly talk to you with temper."

"Then don't let us talk about it at all," said Elizabeth, whose own heightened colour shewed that her temper was moving.

"Unhappily it is necessary," said Mr. Haye dryly.

"Why in the world is it necessary? You can't alter the matter, father, by talking; -- it must stand so."

"Stand how?"

"Why, as it does stand -- Rose and I as near as possible nothing to each other."

"Things can hardly stand so," said Mr. Haye. "You must be either less or more."